Mass Effect 3 Martyr
by RevanSentinel
Summary: An adaptation of Shepard's final journey. The full game. Faithful to the canon with some very minor tweaks.


My fanfiction/adaptation of Mass Effect 3. Enjoy!

* * *

My name's Isaac.

Don't know what else to say about me.

Oh, my cousin's name was Jake. Jake Nakamura. He's dead. Was still on Earth. Heard he blew up a whole building of Husks.

My mother's name was Sarah. She's dead.

My sister's name was Rhea. I shot her.

Long story.

My family lived on Trident. Our house was in New Cousteau, just above the bluff overlooking the waterfall. Last I saw, the cliff had been shorn off. Dad was in that house.

At 0000 hour of the attack, the beginning, there were fleet exercises around the relay. Mom was in the Alliance station orbiting and received word of colonies going dark. The Reapers came through while she was contacting us to get to a shuttle. They blew the first three sections of the station to bits. Then they landed their troops. I saw Mom get blasted to a rain of blood and gore by these batarian-looking things.

Three turian frigates dropped in through the relay, along with one asari dreadnought. The dreadnought crashed into New Cousteau, and the first two frigates were blasted apart, destroying the shuttles and carriers escaping the planet. I was on the last frigate, and we barely made it out before they ripped us apart.

Rhea and I were twenty-nine and twenty, respectively. She was an Alliance marine. N7. Special Ops. I was in training. Got to N3 before I wiped out in the Shanxi Sim. But still, getting through to that level offered me a future rank as Lieutenant Commander. I dropped from active duty though.

Rhea put a rifle into my hand and just told me to fire when the turian ship crashed on Anhur. We hit a tower first, the impact tearing a hole in the hull and knocking a good number of refugees out, Rhea and myself included. One krogan, Verg, leapt out after me. I knew him from Trident. Respected my choice to stand up to a bunch of bullies and sent them all to the hospital after watching me manage to rip the balls off one.

Verg grabbed me, covering me with his body and using biotics to take the brunt of the impact. I lost sight of Rhea during the fall. Next thing I knew, husks surrounded us. Saw survivors from the cities get gunned down, and the few Alliance marines pinned behind a cliff. Then the shadow of a long triangular vessel appeared over us and blasted the husks, but not before they grabbed over half of us...

Shit…bleeding out here. Got clipped as the Alliance dreadnought evacuating us took some hits. Shrapnel. Who knew bulkheads were so dangerous? Why can't they imput leather seats?! Chair=dead meat. Blew apart with me in it. I'm stilling picking out the shards as I get my EVA suit on.

Verg's holding the door shut. Husks swarming vessel. Rhea was one. She was naked with tubes jutting out all over her. Scraps of armor still clung to her left thigh and arms. I shot her. Long story. To put it short, she bit me in the neck. I was barely holding her off. Before I knew it, the Hahde-Kedar pistol was in my hand and I emptied out three thermal clips into her chest.

Strange pods rammed the cruiser. That's how they got in. We held them off, but we're down to less than the minimal amount of crew to man the ship. Our FTL's barely functioning, and the main Reaper force is coming through the relay.

Technically speaking, I was the highest ranking officer onboard the vessel. The bridge crew had been slaughtered, and the captain died when he blew open the starboard living quarters with him still in it to take out the brunt of the boarding parties.

Now, I'm standing on the hull of the cruiser, along with the remaining soldiers, techs, biotics, and Verg. The remaining crew is manning the vessel, putting it on full sublight speed. The civilians have strapped themselves with grenades and are clustered around the core.

Though no one will ever hear of it, our last act of defiance will be the first real victory against the Reapers. The first victory. Hah. If we can call this a victory. The incoming ships realize what we intend and scatter, but we lock in on two of them.

The armory's been raided. Marines hold Cains, missile and grenade launchers, or other heavy ordinance. The biotics have their arms raised, biotic fields charged and ready. The first of the two Reapers fires at us. The beam only lightly touches the hull as we swerve aside, but it takes out the CIC, where the crew was controlling us. No matter. We're already on a trajectory.

Several things happen at once. The heavy weapons go off. The biotics combine their effort into one concentrated wave. The others open fire with their rifles. The FTL core detonates, along with every magazine and explosive on the vessel. The guns are still firing, only stopping when the explosions reach a particular station or their ammunition supply explodes; sometimes both.

The two Reapers are caught in the explosion. The first has its legs ripped apart, followed by the rest of it as the biotics fire. The second, a smaller destroyer-class, is hit by the nuclear devices.

I watch as the remains of our suicide cruiser erupt in short-lived flames, as the oxygen is snuffed out by the vacuum. I was knocked off the vessel by the first explosion. But I'm not done yet. There's a strange eye-like fighter approaching. I still have my grenades. And with one depress of a button, we're both just dust in the cosmic wind…

* * *

**Present Day…**

"How bad is it?" Admiral David Anderson, former representative of humanity on the Citadel Council, and one of the top ranking officials in the Alliance stood in front of a hologram of Admiral Steven Hackett. Hackett was stationed at Arcturus.

"_Bad…we've just lost contact with two of our deep space outposts. There's something massive on long range scanners_."

"Is _**this**_ what Shepard warned us about?"

"_I'd stake my life on it_." Anderson sighed. Hackett leaned his chin on his crossed arms.

"How long do we have?"

"_Not long; I sent word. The fleets are mobilizing_." Hackett turned to something unseen behind him and an offscreen officer handed him something before the transmission ended.

Anderson turned to Vega. "Lieutenant, get Shepard." The muscular Latino nodded and disappeared through the door. Anderson turned back to the now dark console.

"God help us all…"

* * *

**In 2157, humanity discovered it was not alone in the universe.**

**Thirty years later, they found a peaceful place among dozens of galactic species. But this idyllic future is overshadowed by a dark past: Reapers, a sentient race of machines responsible for cleansing the galaxy of all organic life every 50,000 years, are about to return. The leaders of the galaxy are paralyzed by indecision, unable to accept the legend of the Reapers as fact. But one soldier has seen the legend come to life.**

**And now, the fate of the galaxy depends on him…**

* * *

The fighter swooped down low, flying over the garden-roofed building. Above it, a shuttle maneuvered towards the Alliance Headquarters of Vancouver. There was one problem: shuttles weren't usually the size of capital ships when compared to fighters.

The small toy fighter made shooting noises as the giggling boy continued running around with it. From the Alliance HQ, a single solitary man watched him, unseen and forgotten by many. But not all.

It had been two months since Commander John Shepard, the first human Spectre, had destroyed the Alpha Relay, killing the 300,000 batarian colonists on the planet Aratoht and those in ships and stations in the system. Arrested, stripped of his rank and ship, and locked up in this base, Shepard was disgraced in the public eye...

* * *

But there was more to that. It had all begun three years before: He was the XO on the SSV Normandy, the first stealth frigate of a joint human-turian design, under the command of Captain David Anderson. Meanwhile, the Council had decided to consider the possibility of a human Spectre, part of the Special Tactics and Reconnaissance Force. A turian Spectre, Nihlus Kryke, had come aboard to observe him and train him for the time when it would be decided if he qualified. A routine mission to the Prothean dig site colony of Eden Prime turned into a bloodbath, with Nihlus murdered in cold blood by a fellow Spectre, Saren Arterius, the loss of Private Richard Jenkins, a soldier under Shepard's command, and the colony surrounding a Prothean dig site devastated by geth forces.

Shepard, his remaining biotic soldier Kaidan Alenko, and the lone survivor from the colony's marine defense brigade, Ashley Williams, managed to defuse bombs Saren and the geth had planted in the colony. Shepard came in contact with a Prothean beacon, which gave him a glimpse of the terrible tragedy that befell the Protheans 50,000 years beforehand, at the hands of the bio-mechanical beings known as Reapers.

Accepted as a Spectre, but his vision rejected by the Council, Shepard set out to stop Saren from helping the Reapers arrive to continue their deadly cycle. Along the way, he recruited various soldiers to aid him in his cause, such as rogue Citadel Security Officer Garrus Vakarian, krogan mercenary Urdnot Wrex, quarian tech expert Tali'Zorah vas Neema, and asari researcher Liara T'Soni, whom he would later fall in love with.

Shepard chased Saren across various worlds, such as Feros, Noveria, where Liara's mother, Matriarch Benezia, had been brainwashed by Saren and Liara forced to kill her, and Virmire, where he detonated a nuclear device to stop Saren from breeding an army of krogan, and where Kaidan sacrificed himself to allow the others to escape the planet. It was there that Shepard found that Sovereign, Saren's flagship, was actually a Reaper.

On the run from the Council after his actions on Virmire, Shepard chased Saren to Ilos, where he met the Prothean Virtual Intelligence Vigil, who aided him in reaching the Citadel, where Sovereign could summon the rest of the Reapers from dark space. Shepard managed to help Saren realize he had been brainwashed by Sovereign and sacrificed most of the Alliance fleets to save the Council from the geth armada. Sovereign and Saren were defeated, but Shepard knew that the Reapers would return.

A few months later, the Normandy was attacked by an unknown cruiser and destroyed, with Shepard among the dead. He was resurrected two years later by the pro-humanity terrorist group known as Cerberus, and joined forces with them to take down the Collectors: what remained of the Protheans after they were indoctrinated and mutated by the Reapers. It was the Collectors who had destroyed the original Normandy. Led by the Reaper Harbinger via a link to their leader, the Collectors were abducting human colonists to use their genetic material to create a human Reaper. Cerberus provided Shepard with a new, larger, and faster Normandy, and a crew of the best warriors in the galaxy to aid him in taking down the Collectors. Shepard tracked them down after an assault by the Collectors kidnapped the majority of his crew and found them at their base in the center of the galaxy, orbiting the supermassive black hole. After choosing to destroy their base rather than let Cerberus take control of it, Shepard cut all ties with Cerberus and began wandering the galaxy, preparing for the Reaper invasion.

It was then that Shepard received a call from Admiral Steven Hackett of the Alliance, who'd been keeping an eye on his progress since the events of Akuze. Hackett's friend, Amanda Kenson, had been kidnapped while studying Reaper tech in the Bahak system. He infiltrated a batarian prison on Aratoht and rescued her. Shepard leaned from Kenson that the Reapers were en route to the Bahak system's mass relay, the Alpha Relay, from which they could invade the galaxy. Shepard used "the Project", a massive asteroid in which Kenson and her team had found a Reaper artifact, to destroy the relay after being forced to kill the staff, who had been indoctrinated by the device. The entire Bahak system was obliterated, but the invasion was halted. During the final minutes, Shepard received a transmission from Harbinger, warning him that even with the Alpha Relay's destruction, the Reapers would arrive. And Shepard's actions had made humanity the top threat and therefore, the first to be harvested.

Hackett came onboard the Normandy to inform Shepard about the political fallout from his actions. Over 300,000 colonists had died in the explosion, and the batarians were threatening war unless Shepard was brought to trial and punished for his actions.

Shepard's trial had consisted of public stripping of rank, loss of ship, and then being relieved from duty. His crew, provided by Cerberus, had been locked up. Shame; he actually liked them. He didn't know what happened to the squad whom he had worked with so closely over the past few months. He knew that Gabby Daniels and Kenneth Donnelly, Yeoman Chambers, and all the others were locked up in various centers. Grunt, Jack, Samara, Legion, Thane, Zaeed, Kasumi; they were all probably in the wind. He wasn't even sure if Thane was still alive, or if Keprel's Syndrome had finally caught up to him. Miranda and Jacob…he didn't want to think about what the Alliance would do with high-ranking Cerberus officials. The same went for Garrus, Tali, Joker, Dr. Chakwas, and Mordin...

* * *

A cousin on Trident had sent him a bottle of champagne and a letter promising to try and secure visiting rights for her and two other cousins. The bottle had been confiscated, to be returned upon his release, and he was reading the letter now.

Shepard's thoughts were interrupted by the sound of his door opening.

"Commander," Lieutenant James Vega saluted him. The man was a good soldier, and he obviously worked out a lot, judging by the muscles bulging from his Alliance-issue shirt and trousers. He had been one of Shepard's closest friends since being relieved of command, not to mention one his only friends. He hadn't heard from anyone, nor had anyone tried to contact him, save for close family, such as his mother, who he only saw in person once after she talked to him after his trial. Still, Hannah Shepard knew how to keep a man sane. Meals, similar to the ones she'd cook up on one of the various cruisers he'd grown up on, would be sent to him, and she actually dropped by a few weeks beforehand to bring him up to date on recent events.

"You're not supposed to call me that anymore, James." Shepard put down the pad he was holding.

"Not supposed to salute you either. Come on, the defense committee wants to see you."

"Sounds important." Shepard chuckled. He followed Vega out of his quarters and into the corridor. Men and women of various ranks and careers were running around, and there was an agitated feeling to the air.

"What's going on?" Shepard asked as they turned a corner.

"Not sure, just said they wanted to see you." James stopped to salute a dark-skinned man in his late sixties wearing an admiral's uniform.

"Anderson?" Shepard asked surprised. His mentor and friend turned around and grinned at him.

"You look good Shepard…maybe a little soft around the edges." Anderson chuckled lightly, humourously patting Shepard's rock-hard abs. When all you had to do was sit in a room, push-ups and pull-ups became your best friends. The three of them continued through the halls. "How've you handled being relieved of duty?"

"It's fine once you get used to the hot food and soft beds." Shepard chuckled. He couldn't hide the brief longing he felt when they happened to pass a woman with commander stripes, nor the lingering glance at the rank stripes that he gave.

"We'll get it sorted out." Anderson replied kindly. Several officers brushed past them, and more ran down the hallway, all in a hurry.

"What's happening?" Shepard asked.

"Admiral Hackett's assembling the fleets. I guess word's made it to Alliance Command. Something big is headed our way." Shepard grabbed Anderson's arm in the middle of the staircase.

"The Reapers?" Anderson shrugged.

"I don't know." Anderson replied. Shepard glared at him.

"It's the Reapers. And we're not ready for them. Not by a long shot." He said. They entered a windowed corridor and Shepard got a spectacular view of Vancouver.

"Tell that to the committee." Anderson said. Shepard snorted.

"Unless we're planning to talk the Reapers to death, the committee is a waste of time." He scoffed.

"They're just scared." Anderson argued "None of them have been seen what you've seen. You've been there in the trenches fighting them. You were there on Eden Prime during first contact with the Reapers. Hell, you spoke to one, and then blew the damn thing up. You've seen how they harvest us. You know more about this enemy than anyone."

Shepard's attitude didn't waver "Is that why they grounded me?" He indicated his surroundings "Took away my ship?"

Anderson halted and turned to face Shepard. "You know damn well that's not true. The shit you've done…when you blew up the Alpha Relay, hundreds of thousands of batarians died!"

"It was 304,135 colonists. That kind of information sticks with you. Don't think I made that decision lightly. It was that or let the Reapers walk in through our back door." Shepard snapped.

"I know, Shepard." Anderson sighed "And so does the committee."

They entered the lobby of the assembly hall. A redhead officer nodded her head at them. "They're expecting you two, Admiral."

James shook Shepard's hand. "Good luck in there, Shepard."

A slim soldier in dress blues walked out of the assembly hall. "Anderson." She saluted the Admiral. She glanced over at Shepard and her eyes widened.

"Shepard?"

John turned his head. "Ashley?" His former crewmember, Ashley Williams, looked far different than the last time he had seen her. She had stopped putting her hair in that bun and was now wearing dress blues instead of her heavy Phoenix armor. He had to admit (secretly), that she was, to put it simply, "smoldering". Shepard's relationship with Ashley had been rocky. She at first had a crush on him before switching her attentions to Kaidan after he began a relationship with Liara. Their relationship became more of a brother-sister type after that. When he joined Cerberus, their only true encounter was a terse standoff on the colony of Horizon, and they left on hostile terms. She had spoken at his hearing, but aside from that, he hadn't seen her in months.

Anderson turned to Ashley. "Lieutenant-Commander, how'd it go in there?" He asked.

"I can never tell with them. I'm just waiting for orders now." Ashley sighed.

"Lieutenant-Commander?" Shepard walked up to them. Last time he had seen Ash, at his hearing, she had still been a gunnery sergeant.

"You hadn't heard?" Anderson asked, surprised.

"No," Shepard said sarcastically "I'm a bit out of the loop these days."

"Sorry sir." Ashley said. Shepard was about to speak when one of the guards waved him and Anderson forward.

"It's not like you knew about the Reaper invasion and didn't tell me." He said over his shoulders. Ashley smiled faintly. James walked up to her.

"You knew the Commander?" He asked. Ashley watched the doors close behind Shepard.

"I used to…"

* * *

The defense committee was just sitting down as they entered the hall. Analysts and technicians were still getting to their consoles on either side of the room. The Alliance Council, composed of Fleet Admirals Henri Gerard, Marcus Temple, and Elizabeth Granger, still had their morning coffee with them as they took their place on the large table overlooking the hall, with a glass wall showing Vancouver in all its glory behind them.

"Admiral Anderson…" Temple addressed the pair "Shepard."

"What's the situation?" Shepard asked.

The admirals glanced nervously at each other before Granger and Gerard silently voted Temple to voice their response. Temple sighed "We were hoping…you would tell us." An analyst handed Shepard a datapad. He glanced over it. His eyes widened as he saw the data.

Granger took over "The reports coming in are unlike anything we've ever seen." She said "Whole colonies have gone dark. We've lost contact with everything beyond the Sol relay." That wasn't an overstatement. Every single colony beyond Arcturus had gone dark, and almost every major trade and military fleet had disappeared.

"Whatever…_this_ is, it's incomprehensibly powerful."

Shepard finished glancing at the data. "You've brought me here to confirm what you already know." He glanced around the room before addressing the admirals. "The Reapers are _here_."

There was hushed murmuring and glances. Granger gulped. "Then…how do we stop them?"

Shepard was laughing inside, but it wasn't that kind of laughter. They ignored him for years, and now, with the Reapers bearing down on them, now they asked him for help. It was funny, because _there was nothing they could do_. They had already lost, and no one knew it.

"Stop them?" Shepard let out a dark chuckle and shared a glance with Anderson. He walked up to stare up at the council "This isn't about strategy or tactics. This is about _survival_.

"The Reapers are more advanced than we are. More powerful. More intelligent. They don't fear us, and they'll never take pity on us."

"But…there must be _some_ way." Granger pleaded.

"If we're going to survive this, we have to stand together." Shepard said. "Everyone needs to be willing to die for us to even have a chance at that."

"That's it!? That's our plan?" Gerard snapped. Suddenly, the redheaded officer glanced up.

"Admiral, we've lost contact with Luna Base!" She said sharply. There was more hushed whispering and gasps around the room.

"The moon? They couldn't be that close already…" Anderson gasped.

"How'd they get past our defenses?" Granger asked, mostly to herself. The officer looked at a console then back at the rest of the room.

"Sir, UK headquarters has a visual."

Everyone in the room turned to one of the large screens on the wall. Clouds of ash blocked the sun as huge Reapers descended upon the city. Small spheres sped ahead of them; Shepard recognized the Oculi. One had been enough to cause severe damage to the Normandy cargo bay during the final fight against the Collectors. He could guess how much damage a whole armada could do. The skyward image cut out and switched to a handheld camera.

The image was full of static at first, but it slowly cleared enough for them to see a man in Alliance armor with flames and wreckage behind him. He was screaming into the camera, but his words were just a stream of sound, incapable of being understood. Of course, none of that mattered when a loud sound, like the lowest note of a bass guitar amplified and mutated, drowned out all noise. The soldier was thrown back in an explosion of mud and debris. Then the screen fill with static and a "signal lost" notice appeared.

"Why haven't we heard from Admiral Hackett?!" Anderson whispered urgently to Shepard. The screen switched to show news feeds from all over the world. In Istanbul, dock workers were being attacked by husks. Reapers were descending on San Francisco, turning the Golden Gate Bridge into slag. London was being bombarded. A news anchor was reporting the casualties in Germany when the roof above her collapsed.

"What do we do?" Gerard asked "We need a plan to stop them!"

Everyone was still staring at the screen. Shepard turned around and stormed up until he was standing right in front of the council.

"_**We fight or we die**_!" Shepard said, pointing at the screen "That's the plan."

"We should get to the Normandy." Anderson whispered to Shepard. Shepard was about to speak when the sound of an explosion cut him off. Everyone turned to face the large observation window just in time to watch the severed bridge of an Alliance dreadnought hit the waters of Boundary Bay. It was scorched from atmospheric reentry.

In the clouds of smoke left behind in the sky, they watched as what appeared to be lightning flashing and then several giant bio-mechanical legs appear from the smoke. "Oh my god…" Granger whispered.

Shepard heard the droning sound and knew what was coming next. "Move!" He yelled. A red buildup of energy appeared at one of the Reaper's main batteries. The others realized what was happening.

"Go, go, go, go!" Shepard roared as everyone turned to run. The beam of pulsing energy carved through the window. The Council was the first to be hit, thrown forward by the shockwave as their large table was thrown towards the ceiling, only to come crashing down upon them before rolling/bouncing towards the others.

Shepard ducked as the table flew off into the corner. He turned around and felt the wind get knocked from him as a second shockwave slammed into him and threw him into a bench lining the far wall. A high-pitched beep filled his ears as he sank into unconsciousness.

* * *

"…_shepard_…"

He winced as his hearing returned. Someone was calling him…

"…Shepard!" Anderson grabbed his hand and heaved him up. The Council hall was in flames, with equipment and bodies lying everywhere. Anderson's uniform was bloody and ragged. Shepard glanced down and saw small bits of glass and blood dotting his uniform. His face hurt when he touched it. Small bits of debris had cut into the synth-flesh placed there by Cerberus several months prior.

"Here, take this." Anderson shoved a pistol into his hands. The pair picked their way through the debris, stopping to check on Admiral Gerard, who lay on the ground with his head at an awkward angle. Admiral Granger sat in the corner, impaled by a large shard of the window through her skull. Temple was the only one still alive, but he was being checked by a medic.

"This is Admiral Anderson; report in anyone!" Anderson said into his comlink. Shepard ran up to catch him.

"Lieutenant Commander Williams, is that you?" Good, so Ashley survived.

"I can't raise the Normandy. Meet you at the landing zone. Anderson out." He nodded to Shepard before they both leapt out of the destroyed room and onto a side platform.

Shepard couldn't help but gasp as he saw Reapers descend upon the city. Below him, people were screaming as they were cut down by strange beasts and the large beams of energy that decimated every attempt to attack the behemoths. A couple running for their car was incinerated. Husks leapt down from building ruins and latched onto the backs of fleeing civilians. A child screamed for her mother before a beam enveloped her. Creatures grabbed squads of Alliance marines and dragged them into burned-out buildings. His mind flashed back to Akuze, all those terrible years before…

* * *

_Ambush. Kellion screaming as she was plucked from the Mako, glass shattering and blood smearing the remnants as her body was sliced by the jagged edges, cutting through her armor. She was grabbed by the horrible mandibles and dragged under. Another met the same fate just as he stepped into the hold._

_Nicolai screaming for support…two other Marines overheating their guns against the tough hide of those beasts. Toombs screeching for backup into their transmitter before one of the beasts burst up behind him; grabbing him in its jaws and flinging him into the night sky. One of the tents dissolving from the acid spit, the screams of those still inside ringing in his ears._

_"Bail out! Shepard, bail out!" He grabs Lieutenant Lee's hand. He's still holding onto it when another mouthful of acid destroys Lee, leaving Shepard holding a dangling arm. Shock and bile rise in his throat, and he pushes them back down._

_The camp's been torn to bits. Shepard is bleeding; acid bit through part of his chest armor-not bad though. Five Makos and two Grizzlies turn to escape. One is grabbed before it makes it two yards away from the massacre. The others are thrown into the air, coming down hard after another of the beasts tunnels underneath them. Two land upright. Lewis's expression as his Mako is ripped in half. Johnson running from her Mako and getting swallowed whole before she can even scream._

_Shepard managing to swerve away from an acidic-spit projectile. It still takes off the top of the troop compartment. The marines inside tumble out. Shepard dives out as another Thresher Maw destroys what remains of the vehicle. The M-29 Grizzlies are ripped to shreds as two more Thresher Maws leap out from the ground and dive towards the survivors._

_Nicolai screaming as a tooth manages to spear him when he jumps out of the way. Shepard lobbing a grenade down the creature's maw, its head exploding in a balloon of fluid and gore. Grabbing Nicolai and a Marine who can't stop screaming; her legs are gone. Dragging them onto the only functioning Mako. Driving off, after watching the three survivors he was waiting for disappear down the throat of a beast that comes up underneath them. The Marine's voice dying down to a trickle before going silent. Nicolai flatlining just as Shepard can see the outline of the landing zone against the morning sun. The face of Gunnery Sergeant Ellison, grabbing him as he collapses against the grizzled man's armored chest, sobbing openly._

_A week later, sitting in the counselor's office, listening to the constant thrum of pen against wood. Nicolai's wife sending him a letter of gratitude for bringing her husband's body back to her. He didn't even know him that well. The Marine…Jacqueline Walters. A face he'd see sometimes in the mess hall; once during training on Titan. Fifty marines dead. His mother yelling at him that he did the right thing; their subsequent loss of communications, only resumed upon his father's death..._

* * *

"Shepard! Come on!" Shepard was brought back to the present. Anderson was leaping over a heating unit and dashing towards the harbor. Shepard ran after him, pistol in hand. It was an M-3 Predator, Elanus Risk Control; while Shepard would have preferred something packing more of a punch, like the Phalanx or the Carnifex pistol, the Predator's fast rate of fire soon proved its worth as a husk leapt from a ledge above and Shepard put several rounds of tracer ammo into it.

"Nice to know you still know how to handle a gun…" Anderson stopped as a Reaper slammed into the ground not two miles from them, carving large swaths of fire with its giant energy beams.

They leapt down from the rooftop onto a porch. Shepard checked his pistol-only two rounds left. Anderson ejected his clip.

"Empty." The pair resorted to pistol-whipping, Shepard using the omni-blade feature on his omni-tool, and using the last two rounds in a concussive blast that knocked three husks back over the railing. Just as the last one fell, an energy beam began moving in their direction. Shepard dived behind an upturned table before the beam hit the house next to them, blowing the windows out in a large burst of flames.

The pair cautiously entered the burnt-out remains. One wall was completely gone, opening up into space, and the floor was littered with glass-Shepard was lucky that his uniform's tough leather padding didn't get scratched; Anderson's dress admiral uniform, on the other hand, was more fragile so he had to watch where he stepped.

The next room, the remains of what appeared to be a sitting room, had the roof open to the sky-the door was also jammed, grinding to a halt after opening just under a foot. As Shepard began attempting to, and failing, to hack it, a husk lunged forward from the crack, nearly giving him a heart attack. After realizing it couldn't get through, a well-placed biotic slam tore it to bits.

The door still didn't open. Shepard squeezed in between the two panels and forced them open. Anderson crawled underneath and began searching the next room. Shepard was about to follow when he heard something coming from the vent behind him.

A small child, the same one who had played with the Alliance fighter toy, gasped in fear and retreated back into the vent.

"Hey," Shepard said gently, walking over to the opening. He leaned down to see the boy on all fours inside the vent. He retreated when Shepard's shadow blocked the entrance.

"It's okay." Shepard reassured the boy. The child just shook his head.

"Everyone's dying…"

Shepard reached in but stopped when the boy gasped. Turning his head, Shepard saw a Reaper walk by their building. The boy retreated a little bit more.

"Come here, I need to get you someplace safe." Shepard said. The boy shook his head. "Take my hand."

Still moving backwards, the boy glanced at the ground. "You can't help me." He said.

"Shepard!" Shepard turned to see Anderson in the doorway. He turned back only to find the boy missing. Shaking his head, Shepard rejoined Anderson.

The next room was completely destroyed by the blast. Most of the floor had caved in, and it seemed the same went for the other floors all the way to the basement. There was a narrow section still attached to the wall, but it was covered with debris blown aside by the blast.

"This is a god-damn mess." Anderson growled as he and Shepard threw aside a fallen beam. "Every minute these machines are here, thousands of innocent people die." He watched as the beam fell into the abyss "I won't be responsible."

"It's hard enough fighting a war, but it's worse knowing no matter how hard you try, you can't save them all." Shepard agreed.

"Exactly."

"They hit so fast…I thought we'd have more time." Anderson said as Shepard lifted a piece of roof, allowing him to crawl underneath.

"We knew they were coming. Wouldn't have mattered in the end." Shepard noted.

"And they still just cut through our defenses!" Anderson said incredulously "Every single Alliance fleet called back to Arcturus or Earth and that didn't even slow them for a second!"

The two passed the wreckage of a living room, with burning bodies still inside. "We need to get to the Citadel, talk to the Council." Anderson said. Shepard let out a humorless laugh.

"The Citadel? The fight's here."

"It'll be everywhere soon enough. You said it yourself…the Reapers will destroy everything if we don't stop them." Shepard said nothing as they squeezed through a tight passage in the debris. "The Council…_urgh_…has to help us!"

"You sure about that?" Shepard asked. Both of them knew of Shepard's personal disdain for the Council. "I seem to recall a certain '_ah yes, _**Reapers**_. The immortal race of sentient starships allegedly waiting in dark space_. _We have dismissed this claim_.' Ring a bell?"

"Yeah, but you're a Council Spectre. That has to count for something." Anderson said, ignoring the snide remark aimed at the turian councilor. They hugged the wall as they crossed a narrow section of floor beside the abyss.

"And you were a Councilor on the Council." Shepard shot back "Didn't you leave because…" He stopped as the ground shook. Shepard's arms flailed and he lost his balance.

"Gotcha!" Anderson grabbed Shepard and pulled him back onto the floor.

"Thanks," Shepard said as he dusted himself off "I owe you one."

Anderson smiled "More than one…"

The pair retrieved spare thermal clips from the bodies of two Alliance soldiers before continuing across the roof. "Lieutenant-Commander, I'm patching in Shepard." Anderson said. Shepard adjusted his comm as Ashley's voice filled his ears. The channel was filled with static.

"Admiral, we've-…_enroute to the_…repeat, have Lieutenant Vega with me…to the Normandy…" Anderson and Shepard glanced up to see a Alliance dreadnought exchanging fire with a Reaper.

"Oh god, they're going to take down that dreadnought!" Ashley exclaimed. The Alliance vessel took a direct hit to its main gun, tearing the ship to bits and sending shockwaves in all directions. The weakened roof section underneath Anderson and Shepard caved in, and both went sliding down the slope right next to two marines sitting in what was left of the harbor port. The quay had been separated from the mainland by a falling crane which had left a wipe water-filled gap crisscrossed with various beams and paneling.

One of the marines had his leg trapped under a section of crane.

"What happened?" Shepard asked.

"Get down, they'll see you!" One of the marines whispered. Shepard looked up. On the key, hunched next to several dead bodies, were bulged hulking figures. With a shock, Shepard recognized their faces as batarian…but there was something wrong with them. Their heads had been fused to their torso and large bulbous red sack-like growths had sprouted from their backs. Machinery peaked out from their flesh. Their rights arms had been replaced with a large flesh-covered cannon, which Shepard realized was made from a human body, its skull imprinted on the mutated flesh.

One glanced over at them and screamed with its glowing blue mouth.

Anderson and Shepard opened fire. They took several down, but the ones they only injured bent down over their fallen comrades and began eating them, growing a chitinous layer of red rock-like armor as they did. The pair wasted several rounds just punching through the armor. Finally, the Cannibals hit the ground.

"What happened to you?" Shepard asked the marines.

"Our ship went down in the harbor." The marine pointed to the smoldering wreck on the key, just behind a pile of rubble.

"We're trying to get ahold of a radio. Do you know where we can find one?" Anderson asked.

"We had one, but those things are swarming the wreckage. They'll get us too if we don't get out of here!"

"Don't worry son." Anderson said. Together, he and Shepard lifted the crane section and freed the marine "I'd advise you to get out of the city." The marines nodded as the first one began tending to his colleague's injured leg.

The pair crossed the gap using the debris as islands. Above them, several large winged beasts chased an Alliance fighter. "What the hell?" Anderson asked. Shepard glanced as the things disappeared behind a building. They reminded him of harvesters, but greatly mutilated.

Scores of Cannibals tried to stop them, but Shepard and Anderson managed to take them down. As they reached the radio, Shepard found an abandoned M-8 and stood guard while Anderson tried accessing different channels.

"Normandy, this is Anderson. Do you read?" Anderson asked.

"Admiral, what's your location?" Ashley asked. Shepard breathed a sigh of relief. She was okay.

"By a downed gunship in the harbor. I'm activating its distress beacon." There were several other survivors around the wreckage "Send support! We've got wounded down here." There were about seven marines in fighting conditions; the rest were either dead or close to death.

There was no response from Ashley. "Lieutenant Commander?" Still nothing "Damn it! I lost the signal!" Shepard turned around.

"We've got incoming!"

More Cannibals began crawling out from underneath rubble, or leapt out of fiery pods dropped by Reapers. "Open fire!" Shepard ordered the marines. While their barrage kept the batarian husks away, one by one, the marine's rifles clicked empty and just hissed when they tried to fire. Two were taken down by the Cannibals. Another was dragged off.

Soon, even Shepard's pistol stopped firing. "Fall back!" He ordered.

"To where?!"

"Just go!" Shepard sliced open a Cannibal that was standing over Anderson and shoved its arm towards the other beasts, taking down several of them. More Cannibals came out from around them, closing in, taking two more marines. After what seemed like hours, but was really only a few minutes, only Shepard and Anderson were left standing, guarding the last two injured marines.

"It's been good fighting with you." Anderson growled. They were out of ammo, and had resorted to melee combat.

Suddenly, a familiar voice came over the radio "_**Cavalry's here, gentlemen!**_"

With a mighty roar, the Normandy SR-2 swooped over them and opened fire on the Reaper forces, blasting them to bits. Several missiles came streaking out of the main battery and ripped through the Cannibals about to overwhelm Shepard, spraying him with debris and gore.

"Come on!" Anderson said to Shepard. The pair ran over as the Normandy hovered above a large slanted piece of rubble, and the shuttle bay door slid open. Ashley and several Alliance soldiers ran out and provided covering fire for the survivors.

"Welcome back, Shepard." She said.

"Thanks." Shepard replied.

"Shepard…" Shepard turned. Anderson was still standing on the rubble.

"Come on!" Shepard called to him.

"I'm not going." Anderson said. Shepard shook his head. Anderson just sighed "You saw those men back there! They need a leader, especially now!"

"We're in this fight together!"

"It's a fight we can't win, not without help!" Anderson barked "Go to the Citadel. Talk to the Council. Convince them to help us!"

"What if they don't listen, like always?" Shepard asked.

"Then make them listen!" Anderson snapped "Now go, that's an order!"

"I don't take orders from you anymore, remember?" Shepard said sarcastically. Anderson produced a set of dogtags from his pocket.

"Consider yourself reinstated…Commander." Shepard caught them as Anderson threw them to him. Finally relenting, Shepard nodded to Ashley to begin preparations to leave.

"You know what you have to do." Anderson called to him.

"I'll be back for you." Shepard said "And I'll bring every fleet that I can!" He hesitated for a second before speaking "Good luck."

"You too." Anderson said. The admiral turned and leapt down off the wreckage to rejoin the two injured marines back on the mainland. The Normandy began to lift up. Three Kodiak shuttles flew down and landed in a clearing in the port. Alliance soldiers began herding civilians onto the shuttles. One in particular caught Shepard's eye; the young boy. He was covering his ears, but glanced up to wave at Shepard. Suddenly, the sound of a Reaper made both turn to look. A smaller (if smaller could be the word) Reaper was advancing on the shuttles. Shepard's breath caught in his throat.

The boy was lifted onto a shuttle by a marine, who slammed on the hatch to shut the door, as he and the others began firing at the Reaper.

The three shuttles took off. A red pulse of energy began to grow from an eye on the Reaper's body. Shepard's body was rigid, and he was clutching his rifle so hard that it was beginning to hurt. The first shuttle was blown to bits before it even took off. The second one was shorn in two by the next beam and fell, burning, into the harbor.

The final shuttle, the one with the boy, was heading towards the Normandy. If it could get inside, they would be safe-…

Time seemed to stand still. The Reaper's red eye began to glow and crackle. What happened next was too cruel to describe in words. The shuttle was less than a hundred feet from the Normandy when the Reaper fired. Shepard turned his head as the shuttle was incinerated in one final blast. He was at a loss for words, but stared grimly back at the Reaper, which had turned its attention to the soldiers on the ground.

The Normandy flew off into the clouds as more Reapers descended upon Vancouver. As it left Earth's outer atmosphere, it passed the smoldering remains of the seventy-five cruisers and assorted missile platforms and space stations orbiting Earth, many in a decaying atmosphere. Gliding through the wreckage, the Normandy's FTL powered up and it disappeared.

* * *

Next Chapter will be up soon.

Please R & R!


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